This documentary helped me gain a lot more knowledge on the subject of creativity, law and industry. I really want to delineate on the moments in the film that raised some questions and thoughts on the subject.
First off, I think that it only makes sense that this topic is still very open. I think that anyone can really recognize both sides of the benefits or harmful effects of copyright laws. The real issue, to my understanding, is how to identify and incorporate into law ways of differentiating when something should be fully protected (not able to be used) and when something could still be built upon (able to use... witch credit, if possible). There is the never-ending pulling and pushing of the destruction of creativity and the destruction of credibility (mostly for monetary purposes).
7:10 - The "court decided it's illegal to take anything from recordings... and [it's] not creative..." That really made me wonder... what does the "court" know about creativity???? Anyways...
10:42 - DJ Danger Mouse explaining his album. "The Grey Album" became such an example for me of how something as seemingly unimportant as sampling and mixing music could raise awareness to many different issues. The genius of DJ Danger Mouse mixing The Beatles' White Album and Jay Z's Black Album into his own Grey Album made me see that his album not only shows what greatness can come from remixing, but the symbolic ideas of blacks and whites working together as well could be something "beautiful." His album could have been a really popular symbol and catalyst for more harmonic thinking and change.
33:51 - A man in a business suit not yet introduced says, "You need copyright as an incentive for people to create." I liked this part of the documentary because I never want to be too biased or one-sided in an opinion of a debatable topic. This quote really supports copyright laws, and when I heard it, I thought: "Wow. That is true. The restriction of just constantly using someone else's work can cause people to find a way to make their own." This quote almost throws in my whole ideas about creativity, laws, and industry because of its reasoning. I still cannot fully fathom how much it really holds true to the making of new things though. So if copyright was taken away, is it really that black and white in that it would mean not as many people would be creating?
53:35 - "Freedom drives a more vibrant economy than restriction and control..." A very soft-spoken man says this right after the CEO of Motion Pictures says that "it is against human nature to do anything for free.... well there be some like that, but they may not eat very well..." I found it a little funny that you can see the obvious differences in philosophies from a rich CEO, to a seemingly more humble, soft-spoken man.... Perhaps we could say that people more likely to be for copyright laws and their restrictions are the business men (and woman) and the people more likely to be for more freedom and sharing of things are the humble artists of passion?
All of these understandings explain text(uality) as a dilemma because, as noted, it all comes down to the audience/reader's interpretation. Everyone has mostly different backgrounds, values, objectives, agendas so we all take the most of what we can understand from other's work. That is why it is complicated to believe that the author's intentions will always fully be realized; people are too vast to just see one kind of "cup" (an reference to McCloud's different illustrations of cups...")
I would agree with you that the documentary leaves a lot of ideas open. I think that this is mainly a piece that is meant to start conversations rather than take a side of the argument. I would agree with you that the piece highlights textuality as a dilemma considering the fact that it really doesn't know how to handle the issue at hand. For me, the dilemma rises in the fact that there are even differences in the types of remixes that are shown throughout the film.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the industry of music and film tries to place a blanket statement of piracy over all of the types of practices that were featured. These are varying pieces of creation that don't share the exact same commonalities in production. With this in mind, how can we refer to all of these acts of "piracy" as the same thing? It's an unfair lack of distinction.
With this lack of clarity in mind, it makes sense that the documentary doesn't take a side for or against "piracy" as a practice. This would lead to an blanket statement of approval or disapproval that the filmmakers don't necessarily want to make.